Daru Village

Daru village is very off the beaten path. The village is located very near to the Liberian border right on the edge of the Gola Forest. When we arrive we are instantly swarmed by kids, who are very affectionate and have no "awareness of body and space"--Crystal and Edward, that was for you. Seriously though, I have never been more physically touched at one time by so many hands...it was a little overwhelming. They were very interested in Matt's beard and my fingernails. They lead us by the hands to their school, down a winding path through the forest. 

Then we hang out on the porch of our house and sing songs, play games, and learn numbers and other Mende phrases. We now know how to say hello, how are you, I'm fine, how did you sleep, and yes in Mende. Although that might be my limit, Matt is brilliant with new languages and knows more than me. They have given us African names, and although no one but us finds it humorous here...they named Matt, "Jo", and me, "Mama", so we are Jo Mama!

After our first night, we find that our expectation of what it would be like in a small rural village is very, very wrong. This village LOVES music, dancing, and boomboxes. From about 9-midnight, a huge boombox blasts popular music and many kids, babies, parents, and grandparents gather in the square right outside our house to dance the night away. We have pretty much memorized the 10 songs they have in their tape that plays over and over. Earplugs.....priceless.

We came to Daru through WWOOF, and planned on doing farming. After one week, we have done a cumulative 1.5 hrs worth of farming. But, we aren't complaining. Being in the village is relaxing and peaceful. The sun is really hot here, so people mostly try to stay out of it as much as possible! We love taking walks to nearby villages, keeping our eyes out for monkeys jumping through the trees.

One day we went to a neighboring village to pick up machetes that we ordered (for bushwacking) and instead ended up witnessing a cultural dance that was part of an initiation ceremony for a women's society.  I really enjoyed hearing live singing and percussion.  Live music has been conspicuously absent in our travel so far.  We've gotten very aquainted with a select few radio hits, but this was the first singing I've heard.  The music was really fresh though, rhythms I've never heard before.

This is a photo of cassava leaves that are found in the Daru garden. They are used to make cassava leaf plassas/dishes that are really yummy, although I prefer potato leaf. The tubers found underground are also eaten, and frequently. They are bright white on the inside and on the outside have a brown thin bark-like cover. Otherwise they look remarkably like a sweet potato or yam. Cassavas can be eaten raw, or cooked a variety of ways. I will really miss eating cassava!





On Wednesday, we did some fishing.  It seemed as if almost everyone in the village was participating.  In the morning Alex, myself, and a small group of men went in to the bush to find the "medicine," a vine that grew in one part of the forest.  We chopped some and brought it back to the river.  On the river bank, everyone beat the vines, either whipping them against rocks or hitting them with thick sticks, until they began to fray. 

The threads of the vines were pulled apart and then soaked in the river.  We're not 100% sure why, but we think that some chemicals in the vine make the fish lethargic.  As the medicine was working its way through the water, all the women hopped in to the river with nets (hand-made rope woven around a stick frame) and picked out every last tiny fish in the river. 

Compared with some of the huge catches we saw on the coast, this river has more modest offerings, but they've been tasty.  One fish was electric and I got a shock when I touched it.

One night we awoke to terrible wailing, a man in tremendous anguish.  In the morning we were told that his two-year old child had died.  Nicholas, a German volunteer who's been staying in the village for the past four months, said that it's the second infant to have died during his stay.  Apart from this incident, I think we've both been struck by how disengaged the parents seem from their children, at least by American standards.  It seems that once they can walk, the parents entrust them to 'the village'--following around their barely older siblings.

Here are some photos that I love from our time in Daru:

 When the surrounding villages came to Daru for a ceremony/festival, everyone dressed up in their nicest clothes, gathered together for dancing and singing, met for religious reasons, and enjoyed each others company.

 Alex, Alpha (our host in Daru) and Matt with our new machetes!

 Me using my new machete in the field clearing a plot of land for planting. Even though it is the dry season, the land is very wet here, so the earth is build up around motes of water, which is then scooped up and tossed over the planted ground for watering every morning during the driest months. Working with a machete is a lot harder than it looks!

 Fati became a fast friend of mine in Daru. She has a four month year old son and is constantly doing the laundry! Here she does her usual morning laundry for about 20 minutes....when Matt and I do our laundry it takes us significantly longer and the villagers all gather around and laugh at us.   :)

 Some kids. The baby is Fati's baby. It is very common for kids to scoop up babies and then be "in charge" of them for a while while the mother is busy, for example, doing the laundry.

 Here, "the commando" as he likes to call himself, holds up a HUGE bug for us to see.

 A typical woman in Daru. She's just picked vegetables and will keep them balanced on her head as she walks where she needs to go, with her child firmly strapped to her back.

 Alpha's son, Abu, is only two years old. He loves to grab onto my legs and hold my hand when I walk everywhere.

Matt watches boys play on our porch. Our porch is never empty...the kids come to see us and play. When we don't want to play, they will play with each other. 

Kenema

Kenema is our favorite city so far...it has all of the convenience of a big city, but the feel/pace of a more rural town. Everything is sold in its own section of the city, whether it be school uniforms, bread, kebabs, dudes on the street waiting to change money, rainbarrels, etc. In Kenema we stay with Patrick, one of the WWOOF coordinators, and his "extended family," which he chuckles about every time he introduces his 20 plus kids who live at his place or come around to play all day. 

 

Patrick and his kitten eat dinner after coming home from work. It is common for men to wear boxers and a tank top as their "relax" outfit when they return home. 

Some of the kids help us carry our treated water back from the well.

His house is in the suburbs and is surrounded by farms and has a very safe and friendly neighborhood vibe. At night we look up at the stars, see the moon reflected off the water, and watch the lightning bugs flutter around us. During the day, we play Sierra Leone games that the kids teach us. One is a complicated versions of the opposite of "monkey-in-the-middle"...you are try not to be hit by the people on either side throwing the ball at you as you try to flip over bottle caps, flipflops, or whatever else you have at your disposal. When they hit you, they yell, "Toast!"  It is really fun!

Matt teaches some of the kids how to make an oragami crane

Some kids teach Matt useful Mende phrases. We will need these when we get to Daru.

Some randomn thoughts/observations:

The best coconuts in the world are found in Kenema.

A typical breakfast here is fried cassava (similar to sweet potato) and plantains and fish with speghetti.

One night, the power came on at midnight, so all the kids woke up and watched a movie.

There are lots of Albinos in Sierra Leone; so far we've seen probably 15.

Two things are found in abundance here: mango trees and school children!

Matt helps plant some crain-crain seeds in the garden.

The South

It's still Matt.

After Kabala, it takes a whole day of travelling to head to the second largest city, Bo, located in the Southern district.  One poda poda to Makeni, and another to Bo.  The second leg of the trip is rough.  The back half of the vehicle had the benches removed and was packed full of a dozen goats, the front half, a dozen humans.  Instead of taking the highway, our driver wants to save on fuel and takes a shortcut.  This road, not on the map, is more direct, but turns a would-be 4-hour drive into a 7-hour one, with significantly more bone-rattling bumps.  Our bums are sore afterwards.

Bo is the second largest city in Sierra Leone, after Freetown.  Though not nearly as expansive as Freetown, it's a nice, if brief, change from the more rural areas.  Paved roads and air conditioning aren't so bad, really.  We don't stay long.  The next morning, we do some internet: Alex works on employment stuff while I find out that the patriots did not win the superbowl.  In fact, they were not even invited.  Then we enjoy a cushy share-taxi for the brief trip to Kenema in the east.

Kenema is the base for the shady WWOOF program in Sierra Leone.  The town is vibrant with plenty of shops, diamond dealers, quiet side street neighborhoods,  and a man walking around (following us?) with a wheelbarrow full of the most delicious fresh coconuts.  African coconut sellers are supremely confident with their machetes, holding the coconut in their hand as they chip the top off for drinking, and then splitting afterward to spoon out the flesh.

On the left you will find a variety of posters, typical of those found anywhere in Sierra Leone. Note that Avril Lavine is there...some other interesting ones are of Barack Obama.

 On the right is a market with stalls lining the walkway. This is also typical of any city in Sierra Leone.

 The bread is delicious and the bread sellers are all lined up next to each other, so whenever there is a customer, they all try to show you how soft their bread is by squeezing it to get your business. Needless to say, trying to communicate that we didn't want them to touch our bread was an adventure in and of itself.

 There are several modern buildings and structures in the cities in Sierra Leone. In Kenema, the banks were by far the most modern looking buildings, but in Freetown there are a variety of buildings that look similar. We thought we should make sure to include this photo as we usually were not taking pictures of the modern buildings, but wanted to make sure that there was at least one photo documenting them.

The North

Hello.  This is Matt.

From Freetown we head for Makeni on a crowded poda poda, a minibus that is the most common transport from town to town.  They rarely follow a schedule and depart once the driver feels he has fit enough people inside, or on the roof.  As a passenger, you might think it's full, but it's really not.  There may be four people on a 3-person bench, but really there should be five.  The roofs are loaded high with cargo, usually doubling the height of the vehicle, and often late-coming passengers (always men), ride up next to, or on top, of the cargo.

 In Makeni, we truly realize how nice the ocean breeze on the coast had been.  It's seriously hot.  There are thousands of motorcycles whizzing around the town.  Motorcycles, known as hondas or ocatas, seem to be the standard local transport method in provincial towns. In Makeni it's a flat 1000Le per person wherever you're going (about a quarter).

The next day, we leave the paved roads and take a 5-hour poda poda to Kamakwie, a town in the north, close to Guinea.  As we pass small villages (hamlets?), we notice adults moving at a much slower pace, or not at all.  We also find a street named after me!  The children of the villages are also more keen to notice us, with gleeful shouts of "Abato," "hellohellohellohello," or simply "white!" depending on the ethnicity of the village we're in.  Their faces light up as we wave to them. 

There are mosques in almost every town that look remarkably similar to the one on the right. We also notice that this turquoise/teal color is preferred.

Arriving in the late afternoon, our two hondas fly down a track (barely a road) through jungles and over hills to Outamba National Park.  The large river on the way is crossed by a "ferry," a metal and wood raft pulled along a cable by two men. On the left is a photo of our ferry on the way to Outamba National Park. 

Outamba Park is nice and quiet aside from the steady buzzing of insects and bird and monkey calls through the trees.  We camp just above the river bank in our wonderful mosquito tent (thanks Katie and Elliott), though in the night, we discover that the camping mat we're given because my thermarest broke contained plenty of bugs including a cockroach.  The next two nights we sleep in little thatch-roofed huts.

Our first day there, our guide and I canoe down the river, with Alex on a stool in the middle.  We stop paddling whenever we see the tree branches on the bank shake and look for monkeys.  We're able to see several troops, including the black and white colobus, the spot-nosed, and the vervet monkey.  Incredible birds we've never seen before fly back and forth across the broad river.  Then our guide tells me to stop paddling as we coast towards some objects down river.  One of them sprays water in the air and snorts loudly enough to echo off the trees. We pull off to the side and watch for a while as the hippos disappear and reappear at random intervals like a big game of whack-a-mole.  Occasionally one grunts loudly and exhales a plume of spray.

This should be a video of the hippos...if it does not work, I've included a photo below as well. 

The next day we cross the river walk along wide paths through 12-ft tall grass.  The elephants who created the paths have shown little regard for their impact as we pass countless trampled clearings.  Less-trodden side paths branch off in both directions, and it seems we're on an arterial route.  Our guide points out their footprints as well as those of a 'bush cow.'  We climb a small hill and are amazed at how far the park stretches.

The park is minimalistic in terms of amenities.  Each evening, we would wade out off a sand bar wash in the warm river.  Locals said there are crocs somewhere in the river, but they didn't seem worried, so we tried to put that out of our minds.  We had to pack in all of our food, and our bread was getting stale by day three.  We made a small fire and heated up a can of baked beans and some luncheon meat (Pat should be glad to know that Alex abstained from the spam), that we had purchased from the Lebanese-run grocery store in Makeni.  It's incredible how many businesses here are owned by Lebanese.

We take hondas and poda podas back to Makeni, and scour the town for wi-fi to get the next books of our series on our kindles.  We get lucky at the SOS charity orphaned-children's village on the outskirts of town, where one confused but generous employee turns on the generator and calls his supervisor for the wireless password.

A 3-hour shared-taxi ride later, and we're in dusty Kabala.  A combination of the tapering Harmattan winds (northeasterly winds blowing sand from the Sahara), countless controlled brush fires, and the honda traffic on dirt roads create a lingering haze.  The town is higher in elevation and significantly cooler than Makeni.  That part is nice.  There are three ethnicities in Kabala: Limba, Kuranko, and Fula.  Each has its own language that members speak among themselves.  They also kind of have their own section of town.  If conversing with someone random, like buying something at a store, people would use Krio, the heavily-pidgined english spoken in Freetown.  A Limba boy told me that he can tell the ethnicity of a stranger by their face (Fulas are darker skinned, and Kurankos have wider faces), but it's tough for me.

Kabala

Looming over the town is a broad rock face that we climb up and around, with the help of a young guide.  The hill is one of the Wara Wara mountains, a chain northwest of Kabala, characterized by solid monolithic slabs and cliffs.  We take it slow in the town, recovering from our travels and some sickness.  In the evenings we frequent a bar called Choices (which i think sounds like a great name for a gay bar), which shows european soccer and sells cold drinks.  Through the entire country, if you want electricity, you've gotta make it yourself using a generator, so not many places have cold drinks or lights.  Most hotels and guest houses will have lights for a couple hours in the evening or thru till mornin, depending on how expensive or upscale it is.  The fuel costs determine the prices for many things in Sierra Leone from hotels to transport and even little things like packets of filtered water, which are twice the price in Kabala as Freetown because of the shipping.

On our last day, we take a motorcycle over a long bumpy track out around the Wara Waras to Kakoya village (the supposed origin of the Limba people).  We sit down with the brother of the chief and the whole village gathers around us.  We try to explain we want to hike the mountain behind his village, and he seems skeptical.  Eventually he provides us with two teenaged guides and we start up a track.  The mountain had been recommended in the guide book which came out two years ago, and I guess other owners of the book had passed before us, because one of our guides asked me why my colleagues all want to climb the mountain?  The majority of the young children in the village follow us initially and several stay with us the whole way.  The track disintegrates and we bushwhack our way up to the top for a splendid view and a glimpse of the elusive "stone goat," a marmot-looking creature.